Alright, I'll get this started.
I think my favorite special effect borders between the pullback sequence at the end of Men in Black, and the Borg Queen joining her body in Star Trek First Contact

I personally like the Han/Jabba sequence in Star Wars IV, the special edition. I also like the addition of Boba Fett, who now appears in all 3 films.

Yes. I never saw the origional version (doeh) but I have seen a clip of what appears to be a normal man standing where Jabba is in the new version. I like the touch they added of the updated Jabba acting as tought Han was stepping on him, to conceal the fact that the origional had no tail.

I didn't mind Boba Fett's presence, but I thought it was pushing it slightly to have him basically wink at the camera at the scene's end.

Is it just me, or does CGI have major problems with weight? In The Phantom Menace, I couldn't help observing several times that things fell much faster than they should have.

CGI guys are pretty good with optics, but I suspect they need a bit on mechanics. However, Murray, remember that (barring air resistance due to shape) in the same gravitational field, any two objects will fall at the same speed.

The SFX software that I use has a function called Dynamics that will automaticly calculate the way objects should behave occording to certain conditions such as Gravity, Wind,Magnetism, Air Resistance, and influence by other objects. It is pretty high end stuff, so the only reason it should fall wrongly is if they made it that way, for dramatic efffect, etc.

The other thing to remember, Murray, is that if one of the objects falling was related to a coyote, then different rules apply... It is a well known fact that nothing falls faster than a coyote :-)

I dont know about anyone else, but I thought the visual effects in Star Wars were over-done. As a matter of interest, 98% of the film was digitised into a computer, and 95% had visual effects. The remaining 3% had digital colour correction, cleanup, etc.
Does anyone else have any other feelings on the VFX of Star Wars?
Declan

I think that Yoda looked really cheesy because he's still a Muppet and everything else is CGI. But that's just me…

I've talked to a lot of people about how they felt about the film and the FX. They could've cared less and a lot of them felt alienated because it was too unreal. Personally, I felt like I was watching an expensive Roger Rabbit film...

Lucas has forgotten that while SFX are important, they do not a film make. That's why SWIV was great, because it had story and acting, as well as SFX.

A friend of mine thinks the FX sequence at the beginning of "Contact" is pretty awesome.

Yeahs, its really cool
I love it

Its like Men in Black

I like how we can now see "into" the windows on spaceships now, particularly in Star Trek First Contact and Insurrection... and on Voyager and DS9. To me, that seem's kind of hard to do...

It just means they build tiny rooms inside the model. I saw the making of the pilot, and thats how they did it

I heard George Lucas in an interview saying he was going to film the next Star Wars digitaly, digitally alter it as needed, and then have it sent to cinemas digitaly. He want to remove film from the equation completely. Since it costs $4 a frame to put digital images onto film (after post productions etc.) I can understand his whim. Star wars was 98% digitally altered, so imagine 2 hours of film at 30 frames at second at $4 a frame!

That would be around $864,000. Or close to the top prise on Who Wants to be a Millionare?

I've heard Lucas say the same thing and that he's working on a new projector or with the people who invented it, but it is very expensive right now. He's hopeful to have it be a common occurence for all films, if memory serves.

The SFX from "War of the Worlds" (1953)
ROCKS! (Despite the wires!)

I've read that a brand new series will premiere on the Sci Fi Channel entitled "Sanctuary" & that it will be the first TV show to have 90% of its sets done as virtual sets. If this can be done well & on a TV budget & tight shooting schedule,I wonder what the future will hold for other sf television shows? Will they be able to do a show involving a star ship & actually create all of the sets via CGI? If so,that could mean that an unlimited amount of virtual sets could be cojured up with no more limitations to the number of sets that a show could have due to cost factors or the room on a soundstage.The scope of the sets,now done virtually,could be enormous such as the engine room of a space ship.Alien worlds done as virtual sets could have any look required that the writer wants to come up with such as strange geology,multi-hued skies,rivers of silver liquid,vast horizons,anything,any look at all.The physical limitations of a soundstage will no longer matter at all anymore with virtual sets.And the writer will not have to limit their imaginations anymore either. This could be an incredible & exciting technical development for sf films & TV shows.

mike, Sanctuary actually began as a web series, and was popular enough that Sci-Fi picked it up. I haven't seen a lot of it, but the CG quality looked fairly good.

Thanks for the info,Dave. I'm looking forward to checking the series out when it debuts on the Sci Fi Channel & seeing their virtual sets.